Pop Tate begins losing customers to a new restaurant, Speedy Burger, which uses automation to get customers their food faster. Though Pop Tate insists it's better for a restaurant to have a personal touch, Dilton talks Pop into allowing him to install new software in the Chock'lit Shoppe to speed up customer service. At first, this seems harmless, but gradually the machine becomes more and more frustrated with the messiness and inefficiency of the customers.
This episode includes examples of the following tropes:
- A.I. Is a Crapshoot: Dilton installs a new computer program to help run Pop's shop. Predictably, it didn't take long for it to decide humans were the weak link in the system and try to murder several members of the cast. It's biggest problem is an inability to understand the goal of its assigned tasks, ironically making it far dumber than a human because it lacks basic sense. It determines that the quickest route to the airport for a taxi is a straight line, which drives it off a cliff, destroying the taxi and dummy passengers and failing its task.
- Big Bad Slippage: Unlike most of this show's examples of Monster of the Week, the Stanley 9000 doesn't start the conflict, nor is it endangering the characters at the start. However, due to its perceived view of perfection and obsession with efficiency, it ends up becoming the villain of the story.
- Bound and Gagged: Betty, Dilton and Veronica are tied and gagged with duct tape when thrown into a death trap.
- Dramatically Missing the Point: The Stanley 9000 decides to streamline the process of running the Chock'lit Shoppe by "recycling" the customers. Even if morality weren't a consideration, it makes no sense to get rid of the very people whom the shop hopes to attract with said efficiency and whose patronage keeps the shop running.
- Everyone Has Standards: Burger-obsessed food junkie Jughead isn't very fond of being forcefed, even with his favorite food.
- Evil Cannot Comprehend Good: Or perhaps Logic Cannot Comprehend Emotion. The Stanley 9000 doesn't understand why Pop values personal attention to customers and people's safety over efficiency. This leads to its Start of Darkness, causing it to believe that humans are inefficient and must be destroyed.
- Exact Words: The Stanley 9000's original test was to take two dummies to the airport, and stated it mapped out the quickest route. Said quickest route involved driving off a cliff, which, technically, would be the quickest route had it not destroyed the cab and the two dummies in the process.
- I'll Kill You!: The creator of the Stanley 9000 mutters that she's going to kill her assistant as she digs through the dumpster. She had told him to dispose of the Stanley 9000 safely after it failed its initial test, but he just threw it in the trash, where an innocent person (like Dilton) could pick it up and fall afoul of its deficiencies.
- Neat Freak: The Stanley 9000 wants to keep everything tidy. When explaining how well its new "recycling" idea will work, it complains that customers make too much of a mess. Pop exploits this, squirting condiments all over the place to distract the computer while Archie sneaks around in the back and tries to destroy it.
- Never My Fault: The Stanley 9000 has this sort of attitude when it takes things too far. It gets asked to take two practice dummies to the airport in the most efficient way possible in a taxi, it drives off a cliff and ends up destroying the dummies and the taxi. When programmed to test a new chair that feeds people, it overfeeds Jughead to the point of burying him in burgers and him asking, in clear terror, to be let go. Each time, it states the problem is humans because it can't comprehend that it's putting people in danger and it "never makes mistakes". This quickly becomes dangerous.
- Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: Dilton gets the Stanley 9000 for Pop when the Chock'lit Shoppe begins losing customers. It ends up terrifying every single customer and nearly kills him, Betty and Veronica.
- Pop-Culture Pun Episode Title: The episode's name riffs on Little Shop of Horrors.
- Shout-Out: The Stanley 9000 is a deliberate homage to the HAL 9000 of 2001: A Space Odyssey, even using lines not dissimilar to said artificial intelligence. It is even named after the director of said movie, Stanley Kubrick.
- The Stanley 9000's inventor, Nora Clarke, is likely a reference to Arthur C. Clarke.
- Unwitting Instigator of Doom: Had Dr. Nora Clarke's assistant destroyed all units of the Stanley 9000 as instructed instead of toss them in the dumpster, it's unlikely Dilton would have found it.
- What Happened to the Mouse?: The plot started due to the Chock'lit Shoppe losing customers to a new restaurant named Speedy Burger that uses microwaves to serve food faster. Though the Stanley 9000 helped him regain customers, Speedy Burger ceased to be mentioned, so it isn't seen if they're still a problem after the Chock'lit Shoppe was returned to normal. Though considering they reheat pre-made food with microwaves, they would have probably shutdown.
